Mental health and substance use programs and services found throughout the Northern Health region.
The ABI program provides assessment and consultation for persons with a documented brain injury and mental health and/or behavioural issues. Limited psychiatric consultation is available. The program may provide case management, life skills service, individual and family support related to the brain injury, and education for adults with an acquired brain injury. Contact the program for a referral package.
Mental health, peer support, and cognitive activation groups are held throughout the year. Contact the program for details.
Prince George
Legion Wing
3701 Rainbow Drive
Prince George BC V2M3V9
Phone: 250-645-3712
Fax: 250-645-8068
The adolescent psychiatric assessment unit is located in Prince George and is a regional centre for adolescent inpatient psychiatric services. The team provides crisis stabilization, comprehensive psychiatric assessment and brief treatment for youth who are experiencing serious psychiatric symptoms such as psychosis, disorder of mood, suicidal behaviour or anxiety states.
Care is provided by an interprofessional team, usually made up of a psychiatrist, psychologist, nurses, family liaison clinician, youth counsellors, regional youth liaison clinician, and school teachers, as well as other disciplines as needed.
Prince George
University Hospital of Northern British Columbia
1475 Edmonton Street - 3rd floor
Prince George BC V2M 1S2
Phone: 250-565-2575
Fax: 250-565-2661
The Adult Addiction Day Treatment program provides a client centered approach to wellness. The program focuses on assisting individuals to achieve greater responsibility for their individual recovery, provides access to resources for on-going support and uses the harm reduction model to promote quality health and well-being.
Adult rehabilitation and recovery services are available at a number of locations and provide a varying level of care for adults with mental health and/or substance use issues.
Tertiary resources provide a 24/7 bedded psychosocial recovery and residential care service with both medium and long-term programing for clients with serious and persistent mental illness.
In collaboration with mental health and substance use team leads, the resources are managed through a Northern Health mental health and substance use tertiary resource utilization coordinator which provides a system of bed management across Northern Health.
Northern Health sites and resources include:
- Dawson Creek – Tertiary Acute
- Dawson Creek – Tertiary Care Home Adult – 3 / 4 beds residential
- Fort St John – Peace Villa (formerly North Peace Care Centre) Geriatric Tertiary – 4 beds rehab / 4 beds residential
- Prince George – Iris House Adult Tertiary – 10 beds short term recovery / 10 beds long-term recovery
- Prince George – Urquhart Residence Adult – 5 beds residential
- Prince George – Hazelton House Adult – 6 beds residential
- Prince George – Davis Drive – 5 beds supported living
- Smithers – Bulkley Valley Lodge Geriatric Tertiary – 10 beds rehab / 4 beds residential
- Terrace – Seven Sisters Adult Tertiary – 25 beds residential
- Terrace – Birchwood Place – 5 beds short stay / 3 beds residential
Services are targeted to complex clients in the greatest need of ACT services. Admission criteria are based on the Program Standards for Assertive Community Treatment teams in British Columbia (March, 2008).
The service delivery model is client centred, recovery-oriented and provided by a group of interprofessional mental health staff with a typical client to staff ratio of 10:1. The team is mobile, delivers outreach services in community locations and operates 7 days a week, 12 hours per day.
Northern Health also partners with or provides clubhouses and activity centers in communities across the Northern region. These centers operate in a partnership model with members and staff working side by side as colleagues in an environment of support, acceptance, and commitment to the potential contribution and success of each individual.
The clubhouse is based on a model of psychosocial rehabilitation providing a comprehensive program of support for people with severe mental illness. Clubhouses are places where people have a sense of belonging as contributing adults and offer a tiered employment program designed to integrate interested members back into meaningful, gainful employment in communities.
Clubhouses generally offer a wide array of other member services, including housing support and placement, advocacy, financial planning, evening and weekend social programs and continuing education support.
Activity centers are also based on a psychosocial rehabilitation model, and provide day activities and social skills training, including basic living skills in a safe environment to promote the opportunities for self determination and well being. Activities may include crafts and art programs such as painting, mosaics, card making, weaving, stone carving, and pottery. Activity centre models vary in terms of services and program design in communities.
In communities outside of Prince George, the Mental Health and Addiction community programs offer services that include a combination of CRU, CAST and COAST functions with Interprofessional teams, as well as some specialty services, i.e. Developmental Disabilities Mental Health (DDMH), Acquired Brain Injury (ABI), etc. In Prince George, you access CAST and COAST through a referral from your primary care provider (family doctor or nurse practitioner) or interprofessional team.
Youth addictions counselling and referral, elderly services counselling, early psychosis, eating disorders, vocational and recreation rehabilitation is also available at most community mental health and addiction programs.
The DDMH program provides assessment, consultation, and short term treatment services to individuals 14 and older who meet the diagnostic criteria for a developmental disability (IQ of 70 or below) and who have a mental illness and/or challenging behaviours. Contact the program for a referral package.
Prince George
Legion Wing
3701 Rainbow Drive
Prince George BC V2M3V9
Phone: 250-645-3712
Fax: 250-645-8068
If you live in the Northern Health community and are between 12 and 45 years old, the EPI program can help you. We offer holistic services, including:
- Biopsychosocial treatment from a team of different specialists
- Psychiatry and psychology assessments
- Occupational therapy assessments
- Case management
- Group sessions
- Medication management
EPI helps people who are experiencing their first episode of psychosis. We also provide education for individuals, families, and the community.
What is first break psychosis?
Psychosis means losing touch with reality. It can happen for many reasons and in different ways. The most common signs are:
- Hallucinations (seeing or hearing things that are not there)
- Delusions (believing things that are not true)
Before someone experiences psychosis, there are usually warning signs. Early warning signs include:
- Changes in thinking, behavior, or social interactions
- Changes in feelings, including new onset of suspicion, depression, or anxiety
- Having trouble at work, school, or home because of the changes listed above
If someone begins showing signs of psychosis, it is important to get support right away. Untreated psychosis can harm a person's brain, body, and overall health.
Who can get help?
- People aged 12-45 living in Northern Health
- Experiencing early warning signs of psychosis or a first episode of psychosis
- People with a family history of psychotic disorders
Contact
For questions about the EPI program, call one of the numbers below in the community nearest to you. Services are provided across the entire Northern Health Authority. Offices are located in the following communities:
- Prince George (Quesnel, McBride, Mackenzie, Burns Lake, and surrounding areas)
- Fort St. John – Saplings Mental Health Services (Fort Nelson and surrounding areas)
- Dawson Creek – Haven Family Services (Tumbler Ridge, Chetwynd, Hudson's Hope, and surrounding areas)
- Smithers (Houston, Hazelton, and surrounding areas)
- Terrace (Kitimat and surrounding areas)
- Prince Rupert (Haida Gwaii and surrounding areas)
To make a referral, please call the nearest EPI office, fax referral forms to 250-645-8039, or email them to epi@northernhealth.ca.
Elderly services provides assessment and consultative services for adults 65 and over with a new onset mental health issue or whose mental health issues is complicated by diseases of aging or who is experiencing dementia of any age.
The overall purpose of the Intensive Case Management Teams are to improve the health care and outcomes for individuals and families who are impacted by problematic substance use or addiction with, or without, mental illness and are experiencing functional challenges related to community living, including housing and income. This aim achieved by providing intensive community based outreach services by a multi-disciplinary team that includes registered nurses, social workers, life skills supports and a psychiatrist.
The target population are adults 19 years of age or older with problematic substance use, or with chronic use, with or without mental illness, concurrent disorders (substance use and mental illness) or co-existing functional impairment. Individuals will also be facing complex challenges related to health, housing (ex., being homeless or unstably housed), poverty, and face barriers in accessing existing health or social services. Some may be involved in the criminal justice system and in need of additional services. They require more intensives services than are available in the traditional mental health substance use system.
Prince George
201-1705 3rd Ave
Prince George BC V2L 3G7
Phone: 250-565-5525
Fax: 250-565-2633
Terrace
101-4450 Greig Ave
Terrace BC V8G 1M3
Phone: 250-631-4647
Fax: 250-635-0020
Fort St. John
300-9900 100 Ave
Fort St. John BC V1J 5S7
Phone: 250-261-7271
Fax: 250-785-0555
This program supports clients with opioid use disorder by using a harm reduction approach. We accomplish this by providing overdose survival training, take home naloxone kits and opioid agonist treatment (buprenorphine/naloxone or methadone). The multidisciplinary team also provides individual counselling, education, support, and community and treatment referrals.
Northern Health, Mental Health and Substance Use offers a number of community/prevention services and supports by providing education and training to caregivers, schools, parent advisory committees, public health nursing, First Nations communities, and other community partners to develop mental health and substance use awareness, prevention strategies, and pathways for services.
Northern Health utilizes Provincial Mental Health and Addiction resources which support the assessment, stabilization, and treatment of clients in Northern Health Mental Health and Substance Use.
Referrals to these services are managed through a Northern Health mental health and substance use tertiary resource utilization coordinator which provides a system of bed management ensuring tertiary clients across Northern Health are able to access the appropriate resource at the most appropriate time.
Provincial tertiary resources include:
- Kamloops
- Hillside Center (3 beds – tertiary acute for adults and the elderly)
- Burnaby
- Burnaby Center for Mental Health and Addiction (7 beds for tertiary acute and rehabilitation)
- Vancouver
- Vancouver
- Kamloops
- Hillside Center Provincial Neuropsychiatric Program (2/3 beds for assessment and rehabilitation)
Mental Health Response Team programs, sometimes called “Car 60” are mobile mental health crisis response programs delivered in partnership between Northern Health and the RCMP. The teams pair a plainclothes police officer with a psychiatric nurse who respond together in an unmarked vehicle to mental health related crisis calls. Their goals include deescalating situations, providing on scene mental health assessment and support, connecting individuals to appropriate community services, and reducing unnecessary hospital admissions.
Locations
- Prince George: 250-645-3831
- Fort St. John: 250-787-8140
- Quesnel: 250-992-5189
- Smithers: 250-847-0203
- Terrace: 250-641-5653
The clinic, located in Prince George, provides services for Northern children, youth, and adults living with eating disorders, and their families. It offers in-person outpatient care for people in Prince George and the surrounding area (and for people who prefer to travel to Prince George), and virtual services (phone or video chat) for people anywhere in the North.
Our team
Our team includes a manager, a team lead, an administrative assistant, youth and adult therapists, dietitians, nurses, an occupational therapist, family physicians, life skills workers, and a psychiatrist.
Services
Services are assessed and provided on a case-by-case basis. They can include the following:
- Medical and/or nursing assessments
- Individual and/or group counselling, including nutrition support (dietetic care)
- Referrals to community support programs
- Referrals to more specialized programs, such as those at St. Paul’s Hospital, Discovery Vista House or BC Children’s Hospital / Looking Glass Residence. This includes helping clients and teams determine the best fit for care options. To be able to take part in a more specialized program, you need to be connected to a family doctor or nurse practitioner in Northern Health, and you need to be working with our clinic.
Services for health care providers working with clients/patients who are living with eating disorders:
- All of the above, plus consultation and support in the community setting and during inpatient admissions
- Our philosophy and provincial mandate are to build capacity for health care providers. Our team will collaborate with the primary treating team (for example, assisting with a client’s care plan)
How do I get an appointment at the clinic?
You need a referral from your family doctor or nurse practitioner, or from your specialist. They will need to continue to follow you and provide services as needed related to your care. When they refer you, your doctor or nurse practitioner will make sure you get some specific lab tests and a test of your heart function (electrocardiogram – ECG).
Prince George
1308 Alward Street (Nechako Centre), 2nd floor
Prince George BC V2M 7B1
Phone: 250-645-7440
Fax: 250-645-8039
Email: EDC@northernhealth.ca
For more information on eating disorders:
Rehabilitation services is a multidisciplinary service that includes recreation therapy, occupational therapy and vocational rehabilitation.
The program goals are to assist individuals in increasing their independence by providing opportunities for skill building, community integration and socialization. Rehabilitation services are a support service to other mental health and substance use services and are included in client care planning.
Recreation therapy
- Residential services: Goal/action planning, activities, community outings, peer support and volunteer program supervision
- Community groups: Recreation groups focusing on increasing socialization, community integration and leisure skills
- Community needs assessment: Goal/action planning and goal reviews
- Special events planning/implementation
Occupational therapy (OT)
- OT assessments for life skills and functional abilities
- Skills training and support
Vocational rehabilitation
- Needs assessment: Goal/action planning and goal review
- Support in finding/maintaining work/volunteer placements
- Assistance with education goals
NH MHA provides housing subsidy allowance for eligible mental health and substance use clients under the Supportive Independent Living Program (SILP).
Northern Health provides a number of residential care options for various levels of supportive living, as well as supportive recovery beds (through contracted services with a variety of community agencies) to assist clients who are seeking addiction treatment with housing options while enrolled in an addiction treatment program.
A regional community-based, multidisciplinary program located in Prince George, providing enhanced health assessments for children of suspected or confirmed child abuse and neglect.
Clinic services include medical examination, psychosocial assessment, nursing services, psychological assessment, professional consultation and training, preparation of medical/legal forensic reports. Recommendations are made for community follow-up services, as appropriate.
Prince George
4186 15th Ave
Prince George BC V2M 1V8
Phone: 250-645-3880
Fax: 250-562-1434
Available to youth and young adults residing in the Prince George community, the YCOS program provides outreach to youth with co-occurring mental health and substance use issues through assessment, individual and group therapy, case management, life skills training, recreational activities, and family support.
Northern Health works in collaboration with Foundry Prince George to help youth struggling with problematic substance use. Individual counselling support is available to youth aged 12-24 on a walk in basis.
Foundry Prince George
1148 7th Ave
Prince George BC V2L 5G6
Phone: 236-423-1571
The YCOS program has a specific mandate to work with youth aged 13-19 who have co-occurring mental health and substance use issues, by providing counselling, family support, outreach (the ability to work with youth in a variety of settings) and referral. If you have further inquiries or would like to refer to this program.
Phone: 250-645-7430
Fax: 250-645-8039